biodiesel

bio_derv

Guest
Has anyone tried biodiesel in there fr yet??? I have ran upto 60% biodiesel with no problems at all, 4000 miles so far without a problem.
reminder, diesel gone over £1 a litre
you can make your own from as little as £0.10p a litre
 

AttyNW

Active Member
Aug 28, 2006
46
0
Warrington, Cheshire
I would like to try using biodiesel but i'm worried where i would stand in the event of a warranty claim. I didn't think you could use it in the 170ps version because of the way the fuel is injected.
 

bio_derv

Guest
If you read the manual, close to the back, it says you can run 100% biodiesel, with cars fitted with optional equipment, i asked my dealer, they never knew what is was, and where not very helpfull, my missus also has a ibiza fr tdi 130 57 plate, that has same warning on piss flap about biodiesel, yet hers runs better on biodiesel.
I think why they tell you not to use bio, is because of the dpf filter, which is intended on filtering soot from your exhaust gasses, and as biodiesel reduces all emmisions by upto 90%, they think it will confuse the cars computer. i have been running on 50% bio with no problems at all, never had dpf light come on
Ps, car also made 193 bhp on dyno today standard :p

graph to prove, tried a tunit, only gained 7bhp so opted out and just fitted k and n panel filter
so should make 195 bhp not bad for an oil burner running on biodiesel

Further on with biodiesel, when tesco sold all that fuel that knackered peoples cars, they where not covered by manufactures warranty due to en standards on the fuels they bought or something.
My mate at seat also said, if you ever get any mechanical problems, just fill up with normal diesel, and no one would be any of the wiser. SO i dont think you would ever get a problem

Also i ran a biodiesel business for 18 months, customer had the 5.0 v10 twin turbo diesel tourag, with dpf, ran 100% biodiesel, 40,000 miles, no problems

think its a grey area
I do like idea of saving £40+ everytime i fill up thou ;)
 
Mar 26, 2007
713
0
Norn Iron
^^ Very very interesting with regards to Bio Diesel!!!

What price is it by the way? Isn't it practically the same price as normal diesel though?
 

L7 KVV

mALTEAser
Aug 27, 2007
121
0
what is 100% biodiesel?

Ive only heard of something like E85 (that could be petrol though) But only 15% is made from plants or something.

Do you mean you only put plant stuff in, (ie. no pump diesel at all?)
 

techno

Active Member
Sep 15, 2007
208
0
Cannock Staffs
If you read the manual, close to the back, it says you can run 100% biodiesel, with cars fitted with optional equipment, i asked my dealer, they never knew what is was, and where not very helpfull, my missus also has a ibiza fr tdi 130 57 plate, that has same warning on piss flap about biodiesel, yet hers runs better on biodiesel.
I think why they tell you not to use bio, is because of the dpf filter, which is intended on filtering soot from your exhaust gasses, and as biodiesel reduces all emmisions by upto 90%, they think it will confuse the cars computer. i have been running on 50% bio with no problems at all, never had dpf light come on
Ps, car also made 193 bhp on dyno today standard :p

graph to prove, tried a tunit, only gained 7bhp so opted out and just fitted k and n panel filter
so should make 195 bhp not bad for an oil burner running on biodiesel

Further on with biodiesel, when tesco sold all that fuel that knackered peoples cars, they where not covered by manufactures warranty due to en standards on the fuels they bought or something.
My mate at seat also said, if you ever get any mechanical problems, just fill up with normal diesel, and no one would be any of the wiser. SO i dont think you would ever get a problem

Also i ran a biodiesel business for 18 months, customer had the 5.0 v10 twin turbo diesel tourag, with dpf, ran 100% biodiesel, 40,000 miles, no problems

think its a grey area
I do like idea of saving £40+ everytime i fill up thou ;)

Yeah tell us how much a litre plz :think:
 

bio_derv

Guest
I produce my own, and sell a little to make mine cost me nothing i sell @ £0.70p a litre. There are quite a few biodiesel producers about all ranging in price. but you will 99% of the time find that biodiesel is cheaper, the most expensive i have seen it is at £0.89p a litre, still a nice saving.
As regards to performance, my car feels like it performs alot better on motorway and average 3-4mpg more on a run. It also changes your torque band, as its a higher cetane rating. which is nice!!!!!
Also, if any of ya fancy making your own, its not very difficult to make
 
Mar 26, 2007
713
0
Norn Iron
Bio diesel is also, not exempt from tax - what are the implications of producing your own?

Its something i find very interesting on a personal level - my father has a haulage business, and anyway to cut down the fueling costs are welcome. Plus In my own car Im on target to go +45,000miles this year!
 

bio_derv

Guest
Glad you asked, thanks to mr.brown, you are legally allowed to personally produce 2500 litres per annum before having to pay road fuel duty, or course if you buy from a fuel producer this will have been already payed.
IN other words, if your a home producer you do not need to worry untill you start going over 2500 litres in a year. But nothing is stopping you making 2500, then your dad making another 2500, then your brother 2500 an so on an so on.
There are loads of kits out there, and if your like me, you can make your own, and your friends:p
 

bio_derv

Guest
You perform a chemical reaction called transestification, in which the heated vegetable oil is attacked by a catalyst which is dissolved in a solvent causing the vegetable oil to break down into methyl esters (biodiesel) and di-glycerides/tri-glycerides (glycerine).
in lamens terms: You heat oil to 55 deg c, test the oil to determine amount of catalst to use, which you then dissolve in methanol (solvent) this makes your methoxide, you then introduce this to your hot oil, mix for an hour, then leave to settle. All the crap out the oil settles out, including the glycerine, leaving nice clean biodiesel on top.
drain off your waste, pump the biodiesel thru a filter, and its virtually ready to go in ya car
easy peezie
 

yorkphil

Guest
What sort of equipment do you need for this? If you were to do this in the kitchen I guess it would take quite a big saucepan to produce enough bio-diesel to fill a tank :D
 

bio_derv

Guest
there are many companies that sell stuff ready to go, etruk are one, pretty well priced, or you can source parts yourself and build yourself, typically a 150 litre proccessor will make enough diesel for 3 cars.
So if you have 2 other friends with diesel cars, you can split cost of machine 3 ways.
I have 57 seat leon fr 170tdi, 57 ibiza fr tdi 130, ford iveco 3510 all running on it at current time. And also i allow some of my friends to use my machine, for a small fee of course.
Ebay also a good place to find equipment,i trade under the name of lynzi_p1234
Sell alot of biodiesel related goods, my machine cost £1600 to put together, but has alot of features not needed for small home producers, and its 2 proccessors basically, so you could make your own very cheaply, just depends how much you wanna spend, and how neat you want it
Someone selling them at £295, basically a 50 gallon drum.
if you run your car say 50:50 mix of biodiesel and mineral diesel, you will save at least £25 a fill up, i fill my car 3 times a fortnight, so saving about £150+ a month. Which in turn, pays half the finance for the car, or, pays for you machine.
Its a good little investement, and you can always make a little money for yourself, with the left over biodiesel you dont use that week, or whatever.
I can post some pictures of my machine, before and after results if any of you interested???
Ps. only bought my car as i wanted to run it solely on biodiesel, was originally gettin new audi s3
 
Mar 26, 2007
713
0
Norn Iron
Thanks for the write up! I would be really interested of you would post some pictures..

though I laughed at the 2500L 'limit' before tax - we buy 100s of thousand L every year.. Then again.

What cost do you put the bio diesel at per L then? After you buy all your supplies? Dont include the equipment, it will obviously cost less per L as the volume produced goes up.

Thanks
 

bio_derv

Guest
Well if your making it for a business, theres two ways of doing it.
Make every driver make there own diesel, or make it look like that
Or pay the tax properly
quick run down
you can use new or used oil so price of oil varies from free, to £0.50p a litre
so if you go mid way
oil £0.25
chemicals £0.10
electric £0.01
fuel duty £0.30

so you can make your own biodiesel from as little as £0.41p a litre upto £0.91p if your using brand new oil at top price. If you buy new oil there is no vat, used oil will have vat on it, which you can claim back thru your business.
I used to supply a haulage firm, and they bought 1000 litres a week off me, they where using 10000 litres a week of diesel totally. My diesel was 20p a litre cheaper at retail so they where saving £200 a week, does not sound alot, but if you made it all yourself, could be more like £5000 a week at them quantities. Also if you told vosa you where running on biodiesel, you would get around congestion charges, and may benefit from cheaper road tax. i was paying £35 a year for a 2.0 td mg zr, cos it was running on alternative fuel. they treat it like a lpg conversion.
either way your winning And 90% of vehicles are more econmical on bio.
There are alot of outlets that will sell you biodiesel in large qty, there is a place near me charging £0.89p a litre inc vat. so thats a nice saving there.
Ps. i been running on it for 4 years
 

MKSeat

Guest
Derv.. All of this talk about bio diesel is really appealing to me.. I fill up once a week, spending around £40 ish eah time (£130-£160 per month) Can you recomend a kit that would suit my individual needs, and coulod you please, if not too much trouble tell me the ingredients i would need to get started producing my own diesel...

Many Thanks for your help.
 

bio_derv

Guest
It all depends on how much u wanna spend. Etruk make a nice little 40-50 litre unit. you can also buy all the ingredients needed to make it from them.
I would say it would be easier for first time users just to buy a ready made kit, expect to pay £1000 but at £160 a month, would pay for itself in less than a year. When i bought my car, i managed to get £2600 knocked off, mainly cos i bought two cars at once, so this paid for my machine.
 
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